Grandson of Estonia's Communist boss may become head of Putin's election headquarters

TALLINN - The election headquarters of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the upcoming presidential elections may be headed by Anton Vaino, a Russian politician of Estonian descent, Russia's Kommersant newspaper said.

The newspaper said that there are two choices for the position and it will either be assumed by Vaino or his deputy Sergei Kirienko.

Putin on Wednesday announced that he wishes to once again run for the position of the president of Russia.

Putin in August 2016 appointed Vaino as the new head of the presidential administration.

Anton Vaino was born in Tallinn in 1972. His grandfather, Karl Vaino, born in Tomsk, Siberia, in 1923, was the head of the Communist Party of Estonia from 1978-1988.

Vaino in 1996 graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and after that worked at the Russian embassy in Japan until 2001, after which he assumed a position at the Russian Foreign Ministry and worked at the Russian Presidential Protocol Directorate from 2002 to 2007.

He was named first deputy head of this department in 2007, then deputy chief of the Government Staff, later chief of the Prime Minister's Protocol and deputy chief of the Government Staff in 2008. From 2012 until 2016 Vaino worked as the deputy head of the presidential administration.